


Changeless

by Fyre



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-15
Updated: 2012-02-15
Packaged: 2017-10-31 05:44:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/340574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fyre/pseuds/Fyre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rumpelstiltskin finds that even power cannot change who you really are.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Changeless

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for 1x08 of Once Upon a Time.
> 
> Mostly, because Robert Carlyle completely knocked this episode out of the park. I love his Rumpelstiltskin and I can't wait to see where they take this arc.

Long ago, Rumpelstiltskin was a man. A man and a coward by all accounts. Flesh and blood and nothing more. No, that wasn’t true. Flesh and blood with his own flesh and blood. A child, a son, now dust in the wind. Strange that a child could accept his father as a coward, and yet when his father was strong, he turned and fled.

His clothes are still there, in a room in a castle, which is so large there are rooms that have never even been discovered. Small clothes, neatly-folded and patched with devotion, and as threadbare as anything they wore in their peasant’s hut. In case he comes back. An impossible wish, but sometimes, wishes can be granted.

Long ago, he can’t remember when, Rumpelstiltskin stopped believing in wishes. 

What once could have been a wish became a deal, and what became a deal was bound with his name and his reputation.

He could even pretend, if only for a moment, that the room with the clothes - and toys, all the toys that his beloved Baelfire never had - did not exist. Only the deal existed, or so he would tell himself, day upon day, year upon year. And yet, when he crossed the threshold of the black castle, his feet would carry him to that door. He never entered, couldn’t bear it anymore, but he would stand, gaze at it, and sometimes, he would even grasp the bronze doorknob, but he never entered, not once.

It all changed when she came.

For all the deals in all the world, he couldn’t explain why he demanded her. Belle. He knew the price was too high for her father, for her people, and yet, she stepped forward, took his deal, and he suddenly was not alone in the dark halls of his home. It was the deal that should never have been struck, yet there she was, and there she stayed, as she promised.

For once, there were footsteps in the halls. 

At first, she was afraid. She trembled when he summoned her, and barely dared to look him in the eye. That was what he anticipated, even expected, and that was what he wanted in a servant, but it could never last, not with Belle.

After decades of nothing but fear and fury, to have someone speak to him in curiosity was something new. When she smiled for the first time, he was surprised to find himself smiling too. It had been a long time, and all the certainty of the deal and the rules seemed to fade into inconsequence.

He still left the dark castle from time to time. After all, there were still matters to be attended to. But now, returning to the halls didn’t seem so daunting. When he sat to eat, she would sit with him. When he walked in the gardens, she would accompany him. She even had the nerve to tease him about the lack of gardening that he did.

“All this beautiful landscape, and you’ve done what exactly?” she asked, poking suspiciously at a gnarled, prickly shrub.

“There’s a maze,” he said, waving vaguely in that direction.

She glanced at him with a smile, her blue eyes dancing. “So you want me to get lost now?”

For a moment, he could only stare at her, unsure what to say, and she raised her eyebrows in mischievous challenge. “I think I am starting to see the appeal in that,” he said, which only made her laugh.

“You would always be able to find me,” she said, and she touched his arm fleetingly before she moved off through the bushes. Rumpelstiltskin stared after her. The warmth of her hand through his shirt felt like it had burned.

You would always be able to find me.

If only that were true.

He remembered the day that he regretted, the day he made the most foolish mistake he ever had: the day he made a deal with her, and her alone. Not for a Kingdom or a child or even for wealth and fortune. It was for him, his heart, bared to her.

Not that she could have known that, not then. Not that he wanted to admit it.

It was a simple test, that was all he told himself, to see if she would return.

It didn’t change the fact that all the time she was away, all of the day and into the night, he perched in the window of his high tower, searching the roads that lead to the dark castle. Every movement, every shadow, every deer that darted from the woods made his heart writhe and squirm in baseless joy.

And then, there she was, returning. 

He would have laughed with delight, but something deep and dark and twisted that had nestled in his heart ever since the loss of Baelfire raised its head. He saw her face, felt her touch, and then her lips met his, and he wanted to sink into it, let himself care for her, and believe she could…

Life was never, ever that easy. Nothing could be so simple. Everything had to be a trick, a deal, never something for nothing. What could she get from loving him? Nothing. What would he get? She would be another person for him to fail, to lose, when he was too weak to defend her, to _human_ to fight.

And of course, it was the Queen’s doing.

She, who was twisted by bitterness and spite. She, who hated the very poison that was love. She, who was smart enough not to care for anyone or trust anyone.

It was so easy to believe that Belle was her puppet, that Belle was acting on her command, that Belle was going to betray and break and abandon him just like everyone before. He didn’t want to think about the kiss, the magic that it had wrought, the feeling of his heart beating warm and steady for the first time in decades, centuries, like a man’s heart.

She cared. He knew she did. His trembling hands, his mortal vision, everything that had changed in that dizzying moment, told him that she loved him enough to break his curse, and he had driven her away.

He didn’t know what hurt more: the fact that she was gone or the fact that, before she departed, she saw him for what he was and always had been, which was so much worse than the monster he tried to be.

Long ago, Rumpelstiltskin was a man. A man and a coward by all accounts.

Now, he was just a coward.


End file.
